Well, dear readers, this month is flying by, like a gazelle eating thirty-two tacos. And I, a closer personal friend of the gazelle, am sitting here like so much fish, listening to a Patrick Williams symphonic album of original compositions by him. I’ve been a fan of his since the early 1970s because of his excellent score to the TV movie Incident in San Francisco, and then his work on the TV series The Streets of San Francisco, and then his film scores, including the one we issued on Kritzerland, Butch and Sundance: The Early Years. Prior to that, I slept through a couple of hours of the evening, watched one of the absolute worst movies ever made, National Lampoon At the Movies, originally entitled National Lampoon Goes to the Movies, made in 1981 and not released until 1983. This was their second film, their first being Animal House, but for that one they had real writers, a real producer in Ivan Reitman, and a real director in John Landis. It’s not my favorite movie, but it’s a masterpiece compared to the dreck that is At the Movies, a comedy compendium of three parody films – what exactly they’re parodying is anyone’s guess. Horribly directed (two by Bob Gilardi, who’d go on to direct that comedy classic music video Beat It) and Henry Jaglom, who’s about as funny as pavement. In the book about National Lampoon, the author says that this movie was created in a haze and sea of cocaine and that’s what it looks like. It is without one laugh, it is without a point, and it’s ninety minutes feels like four hours. There was a fourth segment that was apparently so bad that preview audiences were very vocal in their hatred. Then I fast-forwarded through the final Abbot and Costello film, Dance With Me, Henry, which I saw at my neighborhood Picfair Theater when it came out. It takes place at Kiddyland, but apparently not OUR Kiddieland, but some other amusement park in Philadelphia. Of course, that makes no sense at all because this was a no-budget film and the rest is shot in L.A. But that’s what it says on the imdb, but we all know how accurate that is. I just looked at a photo from that park in the 1950s and I suppose it could be shot there. But the little train we see in the film and the pony ride were absolutely a part of our Kiddieland. Who knows?
Yesterday was yet another weird day – all this lack of sleep is really messing with me, I must say and have said. I did get almost seven hours, but I need to make up for the three days of four hours of sleep and that I haven’t done yet. Once up, I answered e-mails, and ordered food from a local Japanese restaurant, a chicken Bento Box. This jernt gets great reviews, and because I’ve been disappointed with every other Japanese jernt’s Bento Boxes I figured why not and I had a 40% off coupon to use. It arrived thirty minutes after ordering and I’m afraid it was quite ordinary. The tempura was okay, the chicken teriyaki less so – the sauce was too thin and flavorless for my taste. I’m beginning to think there simply aren’t any good Japanese jernts around here or maybe they just do the sushi well and everything else is an afterthought. I did some writing and got into the next section, although I know I have to completely rewrite the last part of it. After that, I plopped down on the bed and slept for an hour, after which I went to Gelson’s and bought the Clorox for she of the Evil Eye, who will be here all too soon. Then I watched stuff, dozing off every now and then, which I have to say I’m very bored of doing – it’s starting to really irritate me. I have never ever been a nap person and I hate it, actually. And here we are as the midnight hour approacheth.
Today, I’ll be up by eight-thirty at the latest and out the door before nine. I’ll go somewhere and have a light breakfast, do stuff, and then I’ll come home and spend the rest of the day writing. I want to start doing ten pages a day – that will be the goal from here on in – not necessarily writing every day, but most days I will. Then I can watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, then this coming week I’m going to look into seeing how we can stream the Sami soundtrack. I’m just not sure how to approach doing so, so I have to do some research to see what’s best. Several people have expressed interest in it. I don’t think it’s worth doing a CD release. We’ll see how it all shakes out.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example be up by eight-thirty at the latest, I’ll breakfast somewhere, I’ll do stuff, then I’ll come home and write for most of the afternoon, after which I’ll watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: Who were your favorite movie comedy teams, the ones who really made you laugh? And who were your favorite comedy teams who appeared on stage and TV variety shows? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, having seen a motion picture that was funny as pavement.